A modern retelling of the Virgin Birth, Mary (Myriem Roussel) is a student who plays basketball and works at her father's gas station; her boyfriend Joseph (Thierry Rode) is an earnest dropout who drives a cab. The angel Gabriel (Philippe Lacoste) must school Joseph to accept Mary's pregnancy, while Mary comes to terms with God's plan.

From Jean-Luc Godard, this densely packed rumination on the need to create order and beauty in a world ruled by chaos is divided into several distinct but related stories, chiefly the attempts by an idealistic French acting troupe to stage a play in war-torn Sarajevo. Along their journey, they are captured and held in a POW camp. Amid the gunfire of war, an elderly director struggles to complete his film.